Complementary Tools for Studying the Cold War in Africa

Abstract

This review of Piero Gleijeses’ monumental historical text, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1959-1976, and Jihan El-Tahri’s award-winning documentary, Cuba: An African Odyssey, not only examines the strengths and weaknesses of these powerful complementary texts regarding Cuban internationalism in Africa but also provides pedagogical guidance for their use in teaching about the Cold War in Africa. These texts demonstrate how central Africa was to the history of the period and provide a means for educators to undermine students’ preconceived notions of the power of the West, African insignificance, and the major actors in the Cold War. This review offers suggestions for how instructors might use the two media to stimulate students’ critical thinking about such broad historical and political themes as race and culture, imperialism and anticolonialism, nationalism, revolution, and nation building foundational to the discourse. Additionally, it suggests other resources—books, newspaper articles, and primary documents—that might also be used when examining this tumultuous historical moment.